Important facts need to know about BRICS

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday left on an eight-day tour to five Central Asian countries and to Ufa in Russia to attend the BRICS and SCO summits. The seventh BRICS summit will focus on discussions on enhancing cooperation in economic field, including the possibility of trade in local currency.

Here are important facts need to know about BRICS

• BRICS is acronym of group of five major emerging national economies Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

• It was earlier known as BRIC.

• BRIC countries held their first meet on June 16, 2009 in Yekaterinburg, Russia.

• The acronym BRIC was coined by Jim O'Neill a Goldman Sachs employee in a 2001 paper entitled "Building Better Global Economic BRICs.

• South Africa became the part of group on December 24, 2010 after being formally invited by China and the other BRIC countries to join the group.

• The group was renamed BRICS to reflect the now-five-nation membership, with an "S" for South Africa appended to the acronym.

• Since 2010, the BRICS nations have met annually at formal summits.

• Russia currently holds the chair of the BRICS group, and will host the group's seventh summit this week.